


When Steve Met Darcy

by Nemhaine42



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Steve is an awkward little rabbit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-06
Updated: 2016-01-06
Packaged: 2018-05-12 06:19:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5655718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nemhaine42/pseuds/Nemhaine42
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A bunch of times Steve met Darcy and it didn't turn out so well, and the one time it did. Sort of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When Steve Met Darcy

“Why don’t you ask out Foster’s intern? Darcy. She’s cute,” Natasha said.

She always sprung these suggestions on him, right when he was focusing on something else. And she’d learned her lesson since he’d jumped out of a plane onto the Lemurian Star. Now she always made sure to bring this dating thing up just when he couldn’t get away, when there was no plane to jump out of, or they were flying home, or in the spare moments waiting for briefings to start. Or now, when he had a pile of french fries halfway to his mouth and couldn’t very well drop them and run away. And Sam, next to her, was no help at all, just looking at Steve as if the question hadn’t come straight out of left field. 

“Darcy Lewis?” Steve clarified, unimpressed, “I’m pretty sure she’ll say no.”

“Pfft. Come on, I know you’re sweet on her,” Natasha said, “she’s just your type.”

“Maybe, but let me tell you, Romanov, I sincerely doubt she wants anything to do with me…”

 

* * *

 

The first time Steve Rogers met Darcy Lewis, he nearly dropped several hundred pounds of scientific equipment on her. 

Thor had dutifully hefted many of Jane’s boxes up to their new lab for her, but the rose-tinted glasses the Asgardian was evidently wearing left little room for Darcy. Feeling it was only fair, Steve had introduced himself and offered to be an extra pack horse. She’d accepted enthusiastically, her eyes straying from his face quite often, and shown him where the - deceptively heavy - equipment was to go.

Darcy had quipped here and there about having the apartment to herself once Thor’s was finished, accompanied by a meaningful wink. He felt butterflies in his stomach; he’d met a nice girl, she’d flirted with him, and he hadn’t put his foot in his mouth yet. But as he’d reached up to slide what resembled some sort of generator onto a high shelf, Darcy mentioned how Jane was ‘ _always_ making her carry _super heavy_ stuff’ and poked him in the stomach. The unexpected touch caused his hand to slip and the large metal box tumbled down towards her. He’d jammed his arm up against the wall so the generator hit him instead of Darcy, the weight of it making his bones shake before landing with an enormous crash on the floor.

There’d been no broken bones, and his metabolism had taken care of the bruises by evening. But Steve was in no way proud of the strained groaning noise he’d made, before cradling his arm to his chest and dropping to his knees; nor of the way Thor and Jane had found him on the floor breathing harshly and rasping out a chorus of “I’m fine, I swear” with Darcy patting his shoulder in awkward sympathy.  Thor had taken the last of the gear up and Steve had avoided the lab for a while.

 

* * *

 

The second time Steve met Darcy, he ran straight into her. 

Steve and Sam were on their daily run through the park, giving each other the usual good-natured grief about being slow. It escalated, as it often did, to Steve taking off like a greyhound just to show off. It was a bit of fun that he knew Sam didn’t actually mind all that much, and it let Steve feel his body working in a way he didn’t think he’d ever get tired of. No asthma, no aches or pains. It was great to just open the taps and run. 

“You down to a crawl yet, Wilson?!” he hollered, turning his head back over his shoulder to watch Sam panting and trying to keep up.

But, of course, the thing about yelling over your shoulder is that you’re not looking where you’re going. So he basically plowed through the poor cyclist before they even had time to trill their bell at him. Steve’s legs hit the frame of the bicycle and both of them landed on the grass with a crunch and winded grunts.

“Aw, man. I am so sorry, that was totally my fault. Are you okay?” Steve said, picking himself up. When he actually looked at the person he’d crashed into, he wanted the earth to open up and swallow him, “Darcy?”

 _Of course_ , Steve would quite literally run into a pretty girl. _Of course,_ she would be the same girl he’d nearly dropped a generator on. And _of course_ he’d do it in full view of Sam and everyone else in the park.  

“Ugh, Steve, did you see which bus just hit me?” she groaned. She hissed as she pulled her leg out from under her bicycle; her tights had been ripped by the foot pedal, there was already a fair amount of swelling and a trickle of blood down her ankle.

“I’m so, so sorry, Darcy. It’s all on me. I wasn’t looking where I was going and, I just, it was an accident, I swear. Lemme help you up,” he rambled, feeling his cheeks flush hot with embarrassment. He lifted the bike one-handed - it looked like it made it had mostly unscathed from the collision, but he’d still offer to have it repaired if it needed anything. He heard Sam finally catching up just as Steve tried to help Darcy to her feet.

“See, man. This is why they have speed limits,” Sam said, short of breath.

Steve ignored him. Just as Darcy was upright, she let out a cry of pain and sank downwards as her ankle refused to carry her weight. 

“Woah, okay. Set her back down,” Sam said, “Stand aside, Rogers. Pararescue, coming through.”

Steve gently guided Darcy back down onto the grass and got out of Sam’s way. Steve knew perfectly well how to administer first aid to sprained or broken ankles but so far he’d caused Darcy nothing but mayhem and injury. Darcy let out whimpers and hisses as Sam delicately manipulated her foot. Steve tried not to be jealous of the careful way Sam touched her, the way he wasn’t awkward at all as he talked to her, reassured her, and off-handedly abused Steve for running into her.

“I can’t feel a break but it could just be a small one under the swelling,” Sam pronounced, “I’m thinking you oughta get an x-ray. We can use that fancy-schmancy one Stark has, right?”

“Right,” Steve said, immediately moving to pick Darcy up and carry her, bridal style, all the way back to the tower.

“Aw, please not with the damsel in distress hold, Steve. I can…” Darcy faltered, because frankly no she couldn’t. Steve didn’t have his wallet to pay for a cab, and probably neither did Sam, and there was no way he’d let Darcy pay for one.

“I can carry you, Darcy. It’s no sweat.”

“Yeah but it’s like twenty blocks, it’s not gonna be fun for me after five,” she pondered her options, then gazed up at him and batted her eyelashes, “piggyback?”

Steve knew there was no way he was going to be able to say no to that face, with the pouty lips and the big blue eyes. Which was how a portion of Manhattan and most of Stark Tower witnessed Captain America piggybacking a young woman home, while the Falcon whizzed along beside them on a dented bicycle.

 

* * *

 

The first time Darcy sat in on an Avengers briefing, she wore a woollen sweater. It was entirely the wrong material for cleaning her glasses, she decided, and without preamble she leaned over, plucked up the hem of Steve’s t-shirt and cleaned her lenses on that. It revealed to the team his belly button and the trail of hair leading downwards. Darcy acted as though such a thing was completely normal, and Steve tried his best to do the same. But when he started to address the room, his voice came out croaking and rough. He coughed and desperately willed himself not to blush, struggling under Natasha’s devious stare.

 

* * *

 

Steve was _not_ on vacation, he told himself. He was acting as first response back-up for a mission Natasha and Tony were heading up. Never mind that it was a reconnaissance and fact-finding mission involving arms dealers under the guise of a legitimate business, so the kind of in your face, shield-throwing back-up Steve could provide was unlikely to be required. He was also trying to ignore the fact that the safehouse he was heading towards was an unsecured cabin in the middle of nowhere, and that it already housed a Norse god and two civilian scientists.  

This was a totally serious safety precaution and _not_ a weekend in the woods with Darcy Lewis.

As it turned out, Natasha had needed him to come to the private estate where this arms dealer was holding some fancy shindig. But not as back-up, per se. No, he had to take his bike miles through a rainy night to pick up a set of copied files in a USB drive full of incriminating evidence that it was just safer if it left the property before Natasha or Tony. He rode back, through the rain and biting wind, telling himself that at least the mission was going well. Tomorrow he’d go back to cooking outdoors and drinking beer with Thor, maybe Darcy would make him a daisy chain. He arrived back at the cabin to find lights on but the ladies asleep. A stormy night made for poor astrophysics and they’d turned in early. Thor had stayed up to wait for him but tucked himself into the sofa-bed with Jane while Steve was in the shower. 

Back when they’d first pitched up, they’d all been very grown up about the sleeping arrangements: Darcy and Steve would share an air mattress on the floor by the fireplace. Darcy had been adamant that she would not be sharing with Jane - whom she described as ‘a kicker’ - and that if Steve didn’t like it, he could just suck it up. He’d hardly been wont to complain in the first place but now, looking at Darcy all tucked into her blankets, he was thanking his lucky stars. It was such a cosy, inviting sight - a warm spot in bed next to a beautiful lady.

He was too tired and too cold to doubt his luck, and flopped down heavily on to the bed. Unfortunately, he was also too sapped to remember that it was an _air_ mattress and he was considerably heavier than his bedfellow. As Steve’s weight hit the mattress, Darcy flew bodily upwards and, with a loud squeal of fright and indignation, landed in a heap on the floor.

The thud jolted Thor and Jane awake, and Steve - through the chorus of _“Darcy, are you alright?”_ and _“what happened?!”_ \- kept his face planted into his pillow in mortification, trying desperately not to laugh.

 

* * *

 

“... and so I had to pay for new glasses for her. I mean it was my fault, so that was fine but I… I just don’t think she’d want to go out with me after all that,” Steve finished.

Across the table, both Sam and Natasha had abandoned their lunches in favour of struggling to hold in laughter.

“Wow…” Natasha wheezed, “I don’t know whether you flopping her out of bed means you owe her a date or if you should just maintain a fifty-foot gap at all times.”

Steve was all for the latter. He was well aware that his luck with women was not spectacular but he seemed to regress into an unco-ordinated, chaotic mess whenever Darcy was involved. She never held it against him much but it was just typical that every time he might have summoned the courage to ask a girl out, he shoots himself in the foot. He could hardly blame Darcy for saying no, if he did ask.

“Buy her some flowers or something,” Sam suggested, “say you’re sorry and you want to take her out to make up for it.”

“Oh, yeah, and whatever flower I buy will be the exact flower she’ll turn out to be allergic to,” Steve snorted, “I’m pretty sure she thinks I’m a walking disaster area.”

“You won’t know unless you ask.”

Steve sighed and went back to his lunch, but before he could pass his friends off with an obfuscatory ‘I’ll think about it,’ he heard the jingling of his phone. It was one of the tower’s own internal numbers but not one he recognised. When he answered, he heard Darcy’s relieved voice on the other end.

 _“Steve? Hey, are you busy?”_  

“Uh, no, not busy. Actually, Darcy, I wanted to talk to you about something,” Steve said, which instantly garnered the rapt attention of Sam and Natasha, “but, uh, not that I’m complaining or anything but how did you get my number?”

Sam mouthed ‘who cares, man?’ at him and Natasha made a face of complete disbelief.

 _“I totally didn’t steal it from Thor’s phone. Not at all.”_ Darcy answered, _“but there’s a couple of things I wanted to talk to you about too. But, um, I’m kind of stuck in the lab…”_  

“Well, I can meet you later if you like…” Steve offered, to which Natasha and Sam gave silent encouragement.

 _“Well, I meant that I’m actually - literally - stuck inside the lab. I dropped my keycard outside. Can you come open the door, please?”_ Darcy asked, pitch rising in the universal ‘do me a favour’ tone of voice.

“Oh! Okay, yeah. I’ll be right up. Sit tight,” Steve assured before hanging up. He slid the remainder of his lunch across to his friends and got up, leaving them with vague gestures and excuses while trying to hurry backwards towards the elevators, “She’s in the lab, I gotta go… get her out.”

Natasha and Sam simply watched with bemused and puzzled expressions as Steve left, nearly knocking over a trashcan in the process.

“Does Steve have access to that lab?” Sam queried.

“Nope. Thor does. Stark too. But not Steve.”

 

* * *

 

Steve marched through corridors looking for Dr Foster’s lab, forgetting that he was still in uniform and idly wondering why so many people were practically diving out of his way. He almost walked straight past the right door, only spotting Darcy’s face peeping out of the small glass panel at the last moment. She began talking and pointing down to the lock which required a swipe card. But the door, like all the research labs’ doors, was thick and soundproof.

Steve tried his own keycard only for his face to fall when he was met with the message ‘you are unauthorised to access this area.’ He tried the same thing several times, with the same result and he tried his best to keep down the rather demanding thought that, being Captain America and leader of the Avengers, he ought to be allowed in all the labs. Apparently not. And Darcy kept waving at him and pointing, trying to tell him exactly that. Steve didn’t know who had an authorised card. Jane presumably, Pepper probably. But he knew for a fact that the latter was in LA and he thought that if Jane was here Darcy wouldn’t have bothered calling him at all. After a stubborn final try of his card, a red light came on at the top of the card reader. An LED display told him the door was now ‘security activated’ and to please contact the Safety and Security department to have it unlocked. This was one aspect of the 21st century that Steve was not such a fan of: it used to be so much easier to just jimmy open a lock.

Well, there was only one thing for it. He gestured to Darcy to stand back from the door. He took a large step backwards and, after checking for anyone who might be watching, strode forward and kicked hard over where the lock would enter the door. The metal crumpled and bent with the force and the security panel let out a stuttering whine before dying entirely. Another firm kick and the door swung open.

“Darcy? Are you okay?” Steve called into the lab. He found her off to one side, with one hand covering her cheek and looking somewhat guilty. 

“I’m fine. Thanks, Steve. I… um,” she looked at him with a grimace, “I was trying to tell you my keycard is on the floor outside the door. You could’ve just…. used that.”

Sure enough, when Steve looked back at the busted door, there was Darcy’s little blue and white access card lying on the hallway floor. So much for not embarrassing himself in front of her anymore. And eventually he’d have to explain to Tony, or Pepper, or Maria _why_ he’d broken down a perfectly good door.

“So… what was it you wanted to talk about, Steve?” Darcy asked.

“Uh…” Steve hesitated, highly aware of this most recent screw up, and said in a resigned voice “I actually wanted to ask you out on a date.”

He stood, pink-cheeked, and patted his hands off his thighs, waiting for the awkward rejection that was sure to follow. 

“Really?” Darcy asked, surprised, “because I was going to ask _you_ out.”

“You were?” he asked, incredulous.

“Yeah… although I did have a slightly ulterior motive,” Darcy admitted, pausing a few seconds before launching into a nervous stream of speech, “okay so my cousin Mason’s getting married in a couple of months and they put a plus one on my invite - I guess they still think I’m with Ian from London or whatever - and like I don’t really want to go by myself because… well, my aunt and uncle are paying for most of it and they’re kind of weird. And I know Mason’s going to be too laid back to stop them making it weird, so it’s going to be this whole giant crazy wedding and it’ll be so much more bearable if I have a… date.”

Steve was slightly frozen on the spot, still processing most of that information. Cousin, wedding. London? Weird aunt. Honestly, he was still coming to grips with Darcy asking him out in the first place. 

She shuffled, embarrassed at his lack of response, “okay, so that’s maybe too much, too soon. But, you know, I figured you owed me a date ever since you ran over me in the park.”

Well, that was definitely true. Steve smiled at her and smoothed back his hair, “so, when’s that happening? Couple of months, you said?”

“Yeah, June?”

“So that leaves plenty of time for me to take you out for dinner, right?”

“Right,” Darcy said with a giddy smile.

 

* * *

 

With his date secure, despite all fate’s efforts, even dealing with and apologising to security over the door seemed to go smoothly. Steve was taking Darcy out for coffee on Sunday and to dinner and a movie the Friday after that. But his brain was already two months ahead of time. And the first thing that was out of his mouth when he finally caught up to Sam and Natasha was, “what do people wear to weddings these day?” 

His friends’ eyebrows shot upwards and the Black Widow spluttered into her coffee.

“We said ask her out, not _propose_!”

**Author's Note:**

> I *could* write them actually going to that wedding...? 
> 
> This isn't either of enormous stories I have in my WIP folder, please help me. 
> 
> Thanks to beta, readbycandlelight, for her words of encouragement and for putting up with me and my goldfish brain.


End file.
